My new variety of lily plant originated as a seedling selected from a group of seedlings planted by me at Sandy, Oreg., with the object of producing lilies having flower shades of orange and yellow and well suited to forcing for pot plant production out-of-season.
This selected seedling resulted from my crossing of the clonal cultivar `Charisma` (U.S. Pat. No. 4,180) as the seed parent with a unique hybrid clone or short stature named `Honeybear` (unpatented) as the pollen parent. The present seedling was selected for propagation because of the exceptionally large size of its flowers and the rich orange coloration of the tepals accented by a golden orange midrib band and an attractive "ring" of spots encircling the center of the flower, this combination being unique in this type of lily. Accordingly, this selected seedling was asexually reproducedby me at Sandy, Oreg., with such pleasing results that continued propagation of this new variety was carried on by me and under by direction through several successive generations by bulb scale propagation and by natural propagation from bulblets, which demonstrated that the novel and distinctive characteristics of my new variety are fixed and hold true, under asexual propagation, from generation to generation.
This new variety remains relatively short and is not overly susceptible to bud abortion when forced into flower out-of-season as a pot plant. Additionally, the clone appears to possess to a high degree the desirable characteristics of hybrid vigor, great hardiness, and disease resistance, possessing all of the desired characteristics of excellence of form, color and habit, and the clone is vigorous and a good grower and propagator, as observed at Sandy, Oreg.
This new variety is also well suited to forcing out-of-season when the bulbs are dug at the appropriate time and properly precooled. For example, October-dug bulbs, properly precooled and potted in January, will flower under glass in western Oregon in an average of sixty-five to seventy-five days with no supplemental lighting and at moderate greenhouse temperatures .